| Abstract |
| The mineralized collagen fibrils and tablet-like crystals were observed in the murine femoral trabecular bone, which appeared to have more of a random arrangement with the crystal orientation changed within an approximately 100 nm. The presence of the continuous (002) ring indicates that the c-axis of crystals is mostly parallel to the section and the directions of the c-axis are relatively random with no preferred orientation. The distribution and orientation of mineral apatites in the murine trabecular bone was found to be different from those typically observed in the lamellar bone and the difference can be attributed to the more complex local stress state in the trabecular bone. It was also shown from dark field image analyses that apatite crystals are not single crystalline, but multi-crystalline. This observation is compatible with the suggestion that the formation of a large platelet was attained by joining independent nuclei. The small round crystalline particles (2 nm in size with the lattice fringe lines of 0.28 nm in spacing) observed near or at tip of collagen fibrils were likely to be apatite nuclei nucleated independently. A small misorintation angle between adjacent nuclei can be linked with the multi-crystallinity of apatites observed in the present study. |
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| Key Words |
| femoral trabecular bone, Mineral apatite, Amorphous calcium phosphate, Apatite, SBF, simulated body fluid |
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